UPDATE: In case you missed it, here’s the re-watch of the incredible episode with Justin Simien, below!

OR if you’re hungry for my audio PODCAST here via iTunes or (be sure to subscribe) or download the MP3 file here. Subscribe to keep up with future episodes and take a peek back all previous shows including performances by Macklemore and the Lumineers, insights from Adrian Grenier from Entourage fame, Tim Ferriss and many others.

It’s my hope that after watching this you…
…are now more inclined to take on a huge creative challenge
…can use Justin’s approach and techniques to overome hearing “no” in pursuit of your dreams.
…have a better sense for the “new” democratized way that films can get made..
…have a better understanding of how to recognize and respond to systematic racism.
…have now experienced another visionary and inspiring creative.

Years ago as an up & coming photographer, I got so damn sick of hearing NO, sick of hearing what I had to BE and what my work had to LOOK LIKE in order to “make it”. Now years later and after some modest success, I…actually, wait, who am I kidding…that banter from the world never really stops, regardless of success or achievement. So the question I started asking myself some time ago WASN’T “how can I avoid those toxic ideas” – but rather “how can I use those toxic ideas, the uncertainty they create, or even my own identity crisis as fuel for my biggest goals + aspirations?” How can I beat the system?

ENTER: Film director, writer, and the artist that everyone in Hollywood/the film scene is talking about right now…my newest hero, Justin Simien. More than anyone I know personally, Justin has centered his emerging career around overcoming the “you can’t do this / make this / be this” and around telling stories about the human condition–HIS condition. And he’s parlayed those efforts from a successful IndieGoGo campaign, to nabbing the Special Jury Award at Sundance, and now a nationwide theatrical release of his amazing (and controversial film) Dear White People — that is IN THEATERS RIGHT NOW (ah-ma-zing trailer below…)

Among a several other challenges –like identity, race, AND financing his dream– Justin was told his script couldn’t become a feature length film…and that commercial success “wasn’t possible” with “that kind of script”. But who’s laughing now? Justin is… he’s laughing all the way to award parties, the late night TV circuit, Variety Magazine’s Top 10 Directors to watch, and…to my couch for the next episode of #chasejarvisLIVE!

A FEW KEY CONCEPTS WE’LL COVER ON THE SHOW
// How to use NO as fuel for your creative fire.
// How to crowdsource your projects from obscurity into success
// How to break free from the assumptions of others and claim your own identity
// The power of flipping the script and walking face-first into what people expect from you
// How to make conversation an integral part of your craft
// How to use your very own life experiences as the biggest accelerant to your art & career

WITH THAT IN MIND….HELP US REPRESENT THE SHOW AND WIN STUFF.
FIRST, in order to reach the largest audience possible, we’re kicking out a couple nice prizes. We’re giving away $200 worth of free CreativeLive course credits to two (2) people. Enter to win by sending out a creative tweet OR Facebook post including #cjLIVE + any url pointing to THIS blog post. Sample for cut + paste…

Promoting the show as many times as you can starting RIGHT NOW till the show starts on Dec 10. Winners announced LIVE on the show! Be sure to use the hashtag and/or point back to my Facebook so we can track all your entries.

SECOND, we’re giving away the latest and greatest GoPro Hero4 Camera during the live show to one lucky viewer – you gotta tune in to the live show to win….PLUS we’ll hook other people up with a bunch ‘o Dear White People posters signed by Justin himself. Again, you gotta tune in to the LIVE SHOW, day of, for a chance at winning those.

THIRD – JOIN US LIVE IN THE SF STUDIO FOR FILMING!!
Want to be part of the live in-studio audience? filming here at CreativeLive Studios in San Francisco?? Space is limited, BUT if you’re in the first 40 people, to submit THIS FORM we will email you back within 48 hours with instructions for YOU + 1 GUEST to come hang with Justin and me in person, take some photos, ask your questions, and generally have a ridiculously good time.

LASTLY BUT NOT LEASTLY… our fine friends at BorrowLenses.com –the place where I get all the rental cameras, lenses and equipment for my shoots — have kindly agreed to give all #cjLIVE fans 10% off this month. Use code “CHASE” now till yearend. Enjoy!

UPDATE: The contest has closed and we have a winner!Steve Groves has been randomly selected – and he scores the 1:1 with yours truly, $500 from Adorama and the entire PhotoWeek 2014 from CreativeLive. Stevo: send an email to production@chasejarvis.com to claim your prize and get that consult scheduled. Everyone else: thank you so much for entering!
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I can point to a handful of in-person meetings that changed the trajectory of my career in photography. It’s with that in mind that I’ll ask if you remember the time one photographer scored a private consultation with yours truly + $500 and free photo education?

Well, let’s you and me hang out. Given that a)I think I might have some insights to get you un-stuck in your career / review your portfolio / make some recommendations on approach to creativity and business; and b)the last giveaway was a hit; and c)it’s frickin Photo Week right now… we’re going in for round #2. Yep – I’m giving away another 60 minute 1:1 consultation with yours truly, along with $500 from Adorama, plus all of Photo Week from CreativeLive which is 6 days worth of photo instruction from many of the world’s top instructors. How to enter? Everything you need to know is right here …

HOW DO YOU WIN? Once again, we’re using our favorite widget app to collect all of your entries. It does a few things really well:
1. manages all entries into a completely secure database and properly randomizes a winner
2. gives you info about how much time is left in the giveaway / how many entries there are etc
3. allows you to earn extra entries by participating more deeply in the community (tweeting, sharing, reading posts, etc.)

WHAT THE WINNER GETS.1. A personal consult with Chase Jarvis. You know the drill. If you’re local to SEA or SF, we can do lunch or whatever. If you’re remote it’s a 60 minute Skype call, Google Hangout, or phone call with yours truly. We can talk about anything and everything under the sun — big ideas, portfolios, what your favorite lens is, how to start that business you’ve been meaning to start, etc. Or my favorite flavor gummy bear. You decide.

2. Gear.Adorama are being their usual badass selves and giving me $500 cash (gift card) toward anything on their site that I get to give to one of you. Ideal for helping you get that new lens, body, drone, or even sweet gear for mobile photography.

3. Education.CreativeLive is kicking in ALL of the classes from PhotoWeek — the world’s largest photo education event via best experts in photo & video education. If purchased separately, these courses would add up to more than $800 bucks.

To enter just fill in your info below and follow along. And note: this giveaway is live TODAY all the way through Sept 29th. Winner will be announced on Tuesday Sept 30 via my social feed and email.

Hi Friends. Hopefully you saw my #IceBucketChallenge video and donated or participated in the #ALS internet meme (and were able to keep sight of the real target of raising awareness + $$ for ALS!)

To be clear we were just goofing from a production standpoint, but since there was some cinematic playfulness and we used a bit of photo tech for my icy challenge, I got a bunch of questions / comments from readers asking me to detail our production. So here’s a quick breakdown, including approach, gear, setup, settings + video editing, complete with BTS photos and a final parting shot. Follow-up questions & comments welcome…
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Approach
First, since time and resources were limited we resolved to keep this shoot as low weight as possible. So even though we busted out some fun toys, the whole thing — concept, setup, shoot, edit, and post to the internet — took place in a matter of hours.

Other Gear
_12ft Black Backdrop
_20x25ft Black Visqueen
_10ft Ladder
_Water from the lake
_4x bags of Ice
***This was stuff we had on hand, except the ice which we got from a convenience store and the visqueen, which we picked up at a local hardware store.

Here’s a quick sketch and some photos of how we laid this all out, with the detailed play by play below.

The Details
_The main camera prepared for photos was a Nikon D4S with 24-70 2.8 rigged in a way it could be shot by yours truly using 3x PocketWizard Plus III, one in the camera set at Channel 1 (needs N10-ACC-D200 cable), one in hand @ Channel 1 as well, and one with the Broncolor Scoro pack @ Channel 2, the camera was shooting 9 frames per second, and the Scoro was able to deliver speed and power consistently.

_Video was shot using the GH4 for Slow Motion 96FPS at angle while GH3 was shot straight towards Chase.

_The “Bullet Cam” was a rig made using 10 GoPro’s affixed to 2x grip arms held by 2x light stands (similar to how we did in the Samsung campaign video) and then configured in a semi circle just below the video and still cameras. All of them were shooting video and were synced later with a clap! done prior to the action moment recorded. In post we selected one key action moment and grabbed a single frame from each only the same action frame were selected from the footage of them all for the final edit.

_A bucket of roughly 40 Liters of water was used with water from nearby Lake Union (so not to waste) and 4 bags of Ice (the first 2 melted rather quickly, so we re-upped with 2x more.)

_Lighting was composed of three lights for both photos and video. For video, 3 LED Panels at 100W Each, 2x behind and to my side for the Rim light / to backlight the water / define it off the black backdrop, and one at 45º angle medium/high in height on left of the subject for fill. And for photos we used 3 light positiioned very similarly to video lights to cut down on the variance in lighting schematic. We used 2 medium softboxes behind to the side for the rim light, and a beauty dish above me, centered (beauty is not the word I’d use in this case…). Strobes were powered using Broncolor A4S that delivered 9FPS consistently.

_For the set, we used 2x large light stands to hold up the 12ft Black backdrop, a 20x25ft Black Visqueen that covered almost the entire set’s ground to contain all the water, for that we raised the sides so the water would be kept inside.

Then we let ‘er rip, and you saw the results in motion. We pulled the edit together in Adobe Premier and posted to YouTube within a handful of hours, start to finish. Reminder the vid is here or embedded below to watch again / share

Quick edit of one of the still photos below. Thanks again. Hope you were able to donate and spread the word. Hit me with questions or comments below.

UPDATE: The contest has ended and a winner has been randomly selected! And the winner is… David Arthur! David: send us an email to production@chasejarvis.com to claim your prize and get that consult scheduled. Everyone else: thank you so much for entering! As always, we’ll do more contests in the future for you to win some rad prizes, so make sure to keep checking in.

But while ideas and education trump gear, gear is not irrelevant. I’m 110% aware how easy it is for me to preach creativity over the camera when I’m slinging the latest goodies – D4s, Hasselblads, and an Alexa. The right gear HAS actually made many of my photos, videos, etc possible. Literally.

It’s perhaps then, fair to say that progress in one’s photography career / path takes a combo of 3 things. Ideas, education AND some basic minimum of gear.

SSSOOOOOOOOOO…. It’s with all that in mind that I’m kicking off a contest/sweepstakes TODAY that packs all 3 of those things together. Yours truly, along with my friends at Adorama and CreativeLive are each contributing prizes — all 3 prizes which will go to one winner. That can you be you.

WHAT THE WINNER GETS.1. A personal consult with Chase Jarvis. Yes, a 60 minute Skype, Google Hangout or phone call with yours truly. We can talk about whatever you want to discuss: creative ideas, business ideas, portfolio review, the World Cup — whatever — you name it, I’m yours.

2. Gear. Adorama is kicking in $500 cash (gift card) toward anything on their site. Grab a new iPhone for mobile photography OR apply that $500 to that Canon 5D that you’ve always wanted.

3. Education. CreativeLive is kicking in 2 free classes — online education from the world’s best experts in photo & video education. There’s also business, design, audio courses and more. Learn from Pulitzer Prize winning photographers, Emmy nominated directors, New York Times Bestselling authors. 2 courses valued at $149 each will be yours — for free.

SO, HOW DO YOU WIN? To help wrangle this giveaway, we’re going back to our favorite widget below. It does a few things really well:
1. manages all entries into a secure database and properly randomizes a winner
2. gives you info about how much time is left in the giveaway / how many entries there are etc
3. allows you to earn extra entries by participating more deeply in the community (tweeting, sharing, reading posts etc)

To enter just fill in your info below and follow along. And note: this giveaway is live TODAY all the way through the 7th of July. Winner will be announced on July 8th via my social feed and email. Feedback welcome on the widget if you have any.

REMINDER: this show is TODAY Wed, June 18, at NOON San Francisco time (3pm NYC, 20:00 London) and is broadcast LIVE at https://www.creativelive.com/live5. Tune in, join the global internet audience + live Q&A w/ Swiss Miss. Details below!

UPDATE: JOIN US IN THE STUDIO. Want to be part of the live studio audience? Check it –> This is a special remote episode of #cjLIVE coming to you LIVE from the CreativeLive studios in San Francisco!! Do you live in the bay area and wanna have special access to Tina and yours truly? We just released a few more seats. Send an email to production@chasejarvis.com – you will get a response about seats and details for you +1 GUEST!

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ENTER: Swiss Miss. Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka Swiss-Miss.com) is a force of nature who knows that “your side project is your next big win” more, better, bigger, stronger than anyone I know. Tina’s blog has been an inspiration to me since 2005 and was one of the original blogs I referenced when deciding to start my own…way back in 2006. Put bluntly, Tina is one of the reasons I got started sharing online…and NOW she again leads by example, having created probably a half-dozen business WHILE SHE’S BEEN A DESIGNER WORKING IN THE TRENCHES! Funny thing? Those businesses are now global powerhouses in their own right. AND she’s coming on #cjLIVE next week to tell us all about it.

Moreover, we’ll be LIVE from Design Week San Francisco in collaboration with the AIGA to bring you this amazing look into one of the most progressive creative / entrepreneurship minds on the internetzz. Ever heard of Creative Mornings? That global series of breakfast lectures for creatives – now in nearly 100 cities worldwide? That’s Tina (btw here’s my CM talk comparing Macklemore with Ansel Adams). Ever heard of Tattly? The hottest, most playful temporary tattoo site on the planet – doing exlusive deals with MOMA and designers like Sagmeister? That’s Tina too. Or maybe you’ve used a little tool called Teux Deux to plan your day in lists. Yep – Tina. Co-working space in Brooklyn called StudioMates way before co-working was cool? That’s Tina too. It just doesn’t stop – nor does she. And she’s coming on #cjLIVE to give us all her secrets. Taking your questions via #cjLIVE, live on the day of the broadcast – a global gathering of creative people. An all-access discussion and interactive Q&A. Get the deets here:

At the bottom of this post, I’ve included Tina’s SXSW keynote that should give you a good idea of what she’s all about, but here’s a list of just a few of the details we’re going to try to cover in our 90 minute episode next week:

// Making everything you work on a labor of love
// The risk and reward of an eternally entrepreneurial spirit
// Why side hustles are key to getting noticed and doing the kind of work you want to do
// How and why it’s important to cultivate a supportive community

MY THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL WORK??? Let’s face it – you know I’m a diehard advocate of personal work. Most of my biggest career accomplishments beyond nailing a good campaign here and there – certainly the biggest game changers for me — have been “side gigs” that have become either huge or at least interesting – occasionally both. Sharing behind the scenes photos/videos/looks into the ‘black box’ of photography (back when there was no such access) helped put me on the map. Best Camera – the first photo app to share images to social networks, recognized as ‘app of the year’ in Wired, iTunes, Macworld, the New York Times and helped kick off the mobile photo sharing craze was a side project born from a desire to share MY photos with the touch of 1 button. CreativeLive was a side project cooked up on a whiteboard between myself and my co-founder Craig Swanson. Turns out there’s a pattern to this stuff and turns out you can and should be cultivating these so called “side gigs” or “side hustles” or “passion projects” because they have tremendous power to catapult your career, your beliefs, your life into a whole new realm.

PIMP THE SHOW AND WIN BIG.
If you’ve watched #cjLIVE before, you know how we do! If you’re new around these parts, well you’re in for a treat… We’re giving away $200 in CreativeLive course credits to TWO lucky winners!

Enter to win by promoting the show as many times as you can starting RIGHT NOW till the show begins. Send out a creative tweet OR Facebook post including #cjLIVE + @swissmiss + any url pointing to THIS blog post. Be sure to use the hashtag and/or point back to my Facebook so we can track all your entries. We’ll select 2 of the best ones and give you a shout-out at the beginning of the show, along with access to the $200 creativeLIVE credits.

WE WILL ALSO GIVE AWAY MORE TASTY PRIZES DURING THE SHOW… but you gotta tune in to the show to find out what we’ll be giving away in real-time! I know, it’s a tease. But you’ll be glad you tune in no matter what.

JOIN US IN THE STUDIO.Want to be part of the live studio audience? Check it –> This is a special remote episode of #cjLIVE coming to you LIVE from the CreativeLive studios in San Francisco!! Do you live in the bay area and wanna have special access to Tina and yours truly?? First 25 people to send an email to production@chasejarvis.com will score seats and be notified this week about the details for you +1 GUEST!

Okay, so maybe you haven’t created your New York Times Best Seller that’s sold millions of copies, and maybe you haven’t won the Chinese kickboxing championship or hold the Guinness Record for most consecutive tango spins, but there’s one all-important thing that you have in common with my pal Tim Ferriss….fear.

You might think a wildly successful author and innovator doesn’t experience fear like a “normal person,” but as Tim revealed here, it’s exactly that emotion that is at the heart of his success. Of all the liquid gold Tim shared with me there are 3 important subjects that stood out. I mined these shiny gems to present here with some “homework,” to get you moving in the right direction.

CJ: I think it’s really, really important for the folks at home to know about your take on fear. It’s basically useful in any genre of any pursuit or passion. Talk to me about how you view fear, because there’s so much fear in the photo industry. People are afraid to make mistakes. They’re afraid to get called out. They’re afraid to do shitty work. They’re afraid to be called out on something and a lot of that keeps creative people in a little shell.

Tim Ferris (TF):Fear is a real driver, and it has been for me as well, in the past, whether it was in athletics or writing or academia, whatever it might have been. I realized that it’s a driver based on risk, and that’s when people define risk or should define risk as the possibility of an irreversible negative outcome. What I mean by that is just like most people fail to achieve their goals because they are poorly defined, most people are prevented from doing things based on fear because it’s poorly defined.

[We’ve all been told a thousand times that goals become infinitely more achievable when they have been written down in as much detail as possible. Defined goals are reachable goals. But defined fear? This was something new.]

TF:So what I tend to do if I find myself paralyzed or indecisive, is I’ll write down all the worst-case scenarios. I mean really get high def in the absolute specific worst-case scenarios. Then the second column is…anything I could do to prevent those specific items. Then, if they happen, what I could do to reverse those or minimize the damage from each of those outcomes. You find once you do that that the worst-case scenarios are very seldom as bad as you have envisioned.

It’s just the nebulous, dark phantasm of a bad outcome that prevents you from taking action. What you actually realize: oh, worst-case scenario, I go back to my last job. Worst-case scenario, I take a part-time job doing this. Worst-case scenario, I have to suck it up for a month or to do twice as much work with that one client I don’t like, and then this. Then it really doesn’t seem as scary and you can actually move ahead with it.

Brilliant. Actionable.

Just like most people fail to achieve their goals because they are poorly defined, most people are prevented from doing things based on fear because it’s poorly defined.

Your Homework on #1

You’re probably sitting on a great idea right now. Maybe it’s a short film project that requires you to quit the desk job and start an indiegogo campaign. Maybe it’s a photojournalism road trip across America documenting classic diners. It doesn’t matter. The point is you’re sitting on it. Why? Fear, probably. Right?

If this is you, here’s what you do:List ALL the possible worst-case scenarios. be specific and then for each scenario list all the possible steps you can take to prevent that scenario.

Doesn’t look so bad anymore, does it? Boom!
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2. Finding Your Voice

When he set out to write 4-Hour Workweek, Tim knew he had great ideas, but we all have great ideas, right? For an author (or would-be author, as the case was for Tim) the challenge was turning those ideas into actionable advice and doing so in an authentic way. In other words, he had to find his voice. Turns out Tim’s approach is applicable across many disciplines:

TF:I first ended up with this really pompous like Princetonian shtick that I was doing. Shit, too. Like four or five-syllable words. That was horrible, so I scrapped it, and then I went to like Looney Toons/Three Stooges slapstick, which was also horrible. Scrapped that. So I threw away four, five chapters and had two glasses of wine and sat down and said I’m going to write this like I would write an email to my best friends. That’s how it started. That’s how I found my voice.

Great approach, right? Stop burdening yourself with the prospect of a worldwide audience. Present your work as if to your friends. This applies to writers, photographers, musicians, etc. You’ll be lest apt to force a voice that isn’t yours, and you’ll probably be less apt to see your creative cogs seize up under the pressure. If you have true and trusted friends, I’m betting the bank that you already have an authentic voice within that circle. Use THAT voice to tell your story, whatever it is.

Your Homework for #2

Look back through social posts, photos, your work etc. that you shared with or sent to friends and family and find the little ticks and tickles that are truly unique to your vision, your special sauce, your mojo. Now apply this to your future work.

To a large extent we photographers make our living because of intellectual property rights. The idea of putting our best work on Flickr without our rights reserved is antithetical to what we know—or think we know—as businesspeople.

But Tim made a great point about releasing some of your best work “into the wild” even though there’s no promise and very little prospect for being paid for it. It’s about getting eyeballs on it:

TF:I have a friend, Eben Pagan, a really fascinating guy who’s built up a very successful online content business…and he talks about moving the free line. Meaning giving away, in many cases, your best content as a way to introduce people to your work and to drive people back to your other work. I cannot tell you how many times I have gone onto Flickr and found a photograph—now I’m not saying that everything needs to be Creative Commons—but I’ve wanted to introduce someone’s photograph to a few million people and I choose not to, of course, because it’s all rights reserved. Instead I go to Creative Commons search and then sort by most interesting and I always find amazing stuff. But I always credit and if you were to simply take let’s say two or three of your best pieces and make them Creative Commons, then people like me, and there are plenty of them, hundreds of them, would be able to use that to help promote you.

CJ: Yeah, and you know there’s a big, there’s a big discussion that’s been going on for years now, again, historically photography’s been a fear-based protective, very closed loop, because intellectual property is how photographers make their living. So that’s been a very dicey conversation, and I’ve been at the middle of it several times. I remember five or six years ago talking about Creative Commons with Larry Lessig…as the marketplace unfolds and emerges into this new era, photographers specifically are faced with a decision on how and where to share your work. So it’s interesting to know that you notice that stuff.

TF:…I was traveling with Matt Mullenweg at one point. Matt Mullenweg, genius of a guy, good friend of mine who is known as the lead developer of WordPress. Matt was largely responsible for a lot of that code base in the beginning days, and now runs WordPress.com and Automattic. Really smart guy. We were on the plane, and I remember being really stressed out at this point…because The 4-Hour Work Week was on RapidShare. It was on all these different Torrent sites, and I was like, “Oh, God, how are artists going to be incentivized and writers going to be incentivized to produce work if this is happening?” And he said, “The people who are downloading your stuff on Rapture are never going to buy your book in the first place. They’re not your paying audience, so you’re getting additional eyeballs on your work for free. They would never buy it anywhere.”

I think photography, we could get really futuristic about it, but I do think there are ways that photographers can maintain a better user experience with the paid version, whatever form that takes. So I’d encourage people to think of unleashing some of their best content into that wild, whether it’s Creative Commons or [the] pirated world, because those people aren’t your customers anyway. They’re not the people who are going to spend a $100,000 to get a blown-up print and put on their living room.

Give it away for free. I’ve used this platform to highlight passion projects left and right, from Jay Shells and his Rap Lyric Street Sign project to Andres Amador’s sand art. You MUST get your work seen by the world. And there will always be those who download/use/distribute your work for free, possibly illegally. But this is a risk you have to be willing to take in order to get it seen by those who WILL pay for it.

Your Homework for #3

Assuming you have some sort of body of work, it’s time to get it out in the world. And not the factory seconds, either. Here’s what needs to happen:

Identify 3-5 of your best photos/songs/poems and 3 websites where your work is most likely to be seen + distributed (Flickr, Soundcloud, etc.) Then upload your work under Creative Commons or otherwise.

Controversial? Only if you want to stay in your rut.
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And that’s that. You’ve got your assignments; you’ve got no more excuses. If you’ve got a hankering for a little more Tim Ferriss in your life, check out the full cjLIVE show below, which aired back in August of 2011. We also recently recorded an episode of Tim’s podcast in collaboration with CreativeLive. Check that out here. Otherwise it’s time to get to work.

UPDATE: this is TODAY! starting at 9am SEA time (11am Austin, 12noon NYC, 17:00 London) you can join into the conversation with your truly + the most creative minds from photo, design, tech & music. If I do my job right, you’ll get more insight in a weekend than at a semester of any college – all from people who have found success. LIVE at www.creativelive.com/SXSW. Ask questions all day at #UberLIVE or @chasejarvis.

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Certainly you’re in the know of famed South-By-Southwest (aka SXSW) – that two weeks every year where the creative, film, music & tech worlds all come crashing together in little ol’ Austin, Texas. I LOVE all that stuff, so I’m here all week and ….through the miracles of technology I’ve got 2 LOVELY THINGS to set right on your lap – both of which had better add a bunch of value to YOU, or else the next round of bourbon is on me.

THING #1chasejarvisLIVE (my internet show) & creativeLIVE (my creative education startup) are having a man-child together this week in the back seat of a Cadillac Escalade. That is right, my LIVE show + the best in online education + the ridesharing service that has taken the world by storm are all coming together in one delicious collaboration to bring you LIVE-on-the-innnernetz, real-time interviews with the best + brightest luminaries from film, photo, tech & music worlds … all while rolling the streets of Austin in the backseat of an Uber. This is your free, front row ticket to join me and an insanely talented group of creative genius without leaving the comforts of your own internet connection, wherever that might be. Things are crazy here and this list is always in flux, but here’s a couple names you might recognize that I’m preparing to hang with and bring you their nuggets of wisdom & the inside scoop….

-Austin Kleon. artist and best selling author of Steal Like an Artist & his newest…Show Your Work
-Dana Brunetti. executive producer of HOUSE OF CARDS, the netflix original hit that has reinvented TV
-Kevin Rose. founder of Digg, Revision 3 & is now a partner at Google Ventures
-Brandon Stanton. photographer & creator of Humans of New York, the world’s most popular photo project
-Gary Vaynerchuk. entrepreneur, media maven, best-selling author and wine geek
-Kristen Chenowth. actress from Glee, The West Wing, BeWitched, and other stuff-Steven Kotler. best selling author of Rise of Superman and guru for accessing & maximizing creativity
-Lewis Howes. Former pro athlete, entrepreneur, business coach & world record holder.
– and many many more…including..ahem..perhaps some surprise musical performances

Here’s where you can RSVP for the free #UberLIVE event, find more info, and watch the LIVE broadcast this Saturday & Sunday http://creativelive.com/sxsw. (srsly – you should RSVP)

THING #2Heyyo. I’m giving a little keynote speech for this SXSW thingie on Monday, March 10th at 3:30pm (1:30 Seattle, 4:30 NYC, 21:30 London). Here’s the tasty link to that hot mess http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP18955. If you’ll be physically at SXSW, come join in, heckle me from the audience, throw tomatoes, or whatever. If you’re at home in your pajamas, rumor has it my keynote will be live-streamed, compliments of our friends at U-Stream, but I haven’t got a link yet – will update that ASAP when I get one and I’ll tweet to let you know.

Don’t forget to RSVP for #UberLIVE. And, as always, you can follow along here… Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

There are times when the work is easy. When it’s 3am and there is a connected feeling, when ideas flow effortlessly. When the inner critic who otherwise stunts creativity gets gagged, bound and shoved into a dark closet. And then there are the opposite times. When the feeling of being “blocked” or stunted creatively is powerfully frustrating and the inner critic rages supreme – where nothing of value seems to find its way to the surface.

Whether trying to break a creative block or sustain a creative flow, we have been searching for a secret on this topic for centuries. And unless you’re completely new to this blog, you’ll know that unleashing the creative potential in everyone is a lifelong mission of mine – both personally and at scale (ala creativeLIVE). I’ve given some talks on how I believe creativity is the new literacy and anything we can do to further creative forces – I’m all for it.

Today, however, I’d like we’re on the verge of something great. Getting unstuck using science. In this upcoming book The Rise of Superman (Amazon link here), author and personal friend of mine Steven Kotler breaks down the science of this state of mind, the science of ultimate human performance (called “Flow”)

YOU know what flow feels like. You’ve felt it creatively when amazing ideas flow like water, in life when everything is just right, or perhaps in sports where you’re “in the zone”. THAT’S flow. So what actually happens in our brains when we achieve this feeling of effortless creative energy? You might be surprised to find that there is a sequence and a science behind this “zone” of flow that you we can actually tap into with regularity, and in Rise of Superman, Kotler sets out to decode exactly this. He’s been releasing a series of trailers and interviews with artists (me!) and elite athletes (Dean Potter, Travis Rice, Danny Way, others) and has uncovered some common threads to their own experiences with Flow.

For all our benefit, I reached out to Kotler with a few questions about Flow and his upcoming book. The interview below is our back and forth…Enjoy.

CJ: How did you come to the idea of flow?

There’s two answers here. The first is this is not my idea. Flow research dates back to the 1870s. There’s 150 years of really hard work that has gone into this topic. Thousands and thousands of researchers have worked on it. I just stumbled into that lineage. The story of how that happened is told in my second book (West of Jesus), but the very short answer is that flow states saved my life. Literally. I spent 3 years in bed with Lyme disease and the doctors had given up on me. No one knew if I would ever get better, but for complicated medical reasons they had pulled me off drugs—so there was literally nothing anyone else could do for me.

But it was a series of flow states that brought me back to health. It was radical and rapid. I went from like 10 percent functionality back to about 80 percent in under six months. I wanted to understand how this was possible. I mean, on the surface, it seemed crazy. An altered state of consciousness beats back a chronic autoimmune condition—like how the hell does that work. So, some 15 years ago, I decided to find out. That’s where all this started for me.

CJ: Where does the term “flow” come from, and is there actually a definition of flow?

The technical definition of flow is “an optimal state of consciousness where we perform our best and feel our best.” But the reason these states as called “flow” is because of the sensation conferred. When you’re in flow, every action, every decision, leads fluidly, seamlessly to the next. In other words, flow feels flowy.

CJ: Is flow on a progressive scale, or are you either in or out of flow? My own experiences say it feels like a scale…a progression, but what does your research tell us?

When University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did his groundbreaking research on flow, he discovered there are seven different attributes to the state. This is essentially a checklist of things experienced in flow: intense concentration on the task at hand, the merger of action and awareness, the loss of a sense of self, the distortion of time, etc. And flow is progressive. It exists on a spectrum that is sort of like emotions. With anger, you can be mildly irate or deeply homicidal. The same is true for flow. When only a few of these categories show up, we’re in a state of “micro-flow.” When all ten show up at once, we’re in “macro-flow.”

CJ: Your book connects some very diverse terrain: action-sports, creativity, business, and neuroscience. How did you realize that flow crossed between them all – what’s the thread?

This wasn’t actually my realization. Very, very early flow researchers (back in the 1870s) believed they were looking at an experience brought on by high risk behavior (the action sports category), but, in the 1940, famed psychologist Abraham Maslow discovered the flow experiences are a commonality shared by all successful people. Then, when Csikszentmihalyi got involved in the 1960s and 70s, he discovered the state is ubiquitous. Everyone everywhere has access to flow. So flow applies in pretty much every domain. But this isn’t a business secret. Companies like Toyota, Microsoft, and Patagonia have flow woven into their corporate philosophies. A lot of the really innovative things that companies like Google and Facebook do to manage their knowledge workers comes down to flow science. Flow is everywhere in business—it’s just that most people are unaware of it.

Here’s a 3 minute video interview of yours truly and Steve Kotler about flow and creativity. You’ve felt it before, but you wanna get back there again, don’t you?

CJ: I’ve read the advance copy of the book. I’ve sat for interviews w you, etc. The book is really focused on action sports, but flow is certainly present in so many other areas – ie the creative process — as well. Tell me about that.

Flow is arguably as well-linked to creativity as it is to athletics. As a writer, I would be absolutely unable to function without flow. Every idea I’ve ever had for a book has come out of a flow state. Every article I’ve ever written that has won awards was written in a flow state. To put this in scientific terms, in recent years we’ve begun to look under the hood of creativity. We now know that the three key mental functions that produce the most creativity are mental risk-taking, pattern recognition (our ability to link ideas together) and the size of the database searched by the pattern recognition system. Flow massively amplifies all three functions. It jacks up our ability to take risk by making us feel less fear. It amps up pattern recognition and expands the size of the database the pattern recognition can search. This is why studies have shown people are far more creative in flow. It’s a huge boost. In work done at the Flow Genome Project, we found that most people report being 7x more creative in flow—that’s a 700 percent boost in creativity. More importantly, at Harvard, Teresa Amiable discovered that not only are people more creative in flow, they report being more creative in the days after a flow state. Thus flow doesn’t just amplify creativity in the moment, it literally trains the brain to think more creatively over the long haul.

CJ: One of the core arguments of your book is that the chemistry and function of the brain actually change during flow. How does portions of the brain shutting down help me be more creative?

Flow is causes by profound changes in neurobiology including something known as “transient hypofrontality.” Transient means temporary. “Hypo” is the opposite of “”hyper,” it means to slow down or deactivate. And frontality is show for the pre-frontal cortex—i.e., the part of your brain in charge of higher cognitive functions—shut off. One of the areas deactivated by flow is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This part houses your inner critic—that relentless, defeatist nag that is always part of waking consciousness. When the inner critic shuts off, we feel this as tremendous freedom, as liberation. This is fantastic for creatives. It means the portion of the brain that is always judging creative ideas—shooting them down before they get off the ground—is turned off. This allows you to move from idea to idea far faster.

CJ: You have compared the chemicals released in your brain during flow to some of the most addictive drugs in the world. Does this mean that people have similar feelings in flow that they might experience on drugs?

That’s a really interesting and complicated question. Flow cocktails five of the most powerful neurochemicals the body can produce and each of these neurochemicals have a drug analogue. For example, when you snort cocaine. All the drug does is cause the brain to release copious amounts of the neurochemical dopamine. Well, dopamine is released in flow. So are norepinephrine (speed), anandamide (marijuana), endorphins (heroin) and serotonin (ecstasy). You actually couldn’t produce this cocktail with drugs. Trying to take all those drugs at once and you’re going to end up drooling or dead. But the brain does it naturally. So yes, being in flow is an altered state, just like being on drugs. Does flow feel like any one of these drugs—not exactly. It actually feels a lot better. Moreover, while being addicted to drugs can lead backwards, being addicted to flow—because the state requires meeting challenges and learning new skills—leads forwards.

CJ: In your book and communications, you talk about this concept of “flow hacking,” or doing things to help trigger a flow state. Do you mean that people can create flow in their own lives?

For certain. Flow has 15 triggers—that is, pre-conditions that lead to more flow. Anyone can pull these triggers.

CJ: Besides jumping off a cliff on skis, what’s one trick you might use to help you get into flow?

As I said before, flow has 15 triggers and risk—or what we call “high consequences”—is only one of them. But even here, within the high consequence trigger, their possibility. For example, sure, you can jump off a cliff and take a physical risk. But you can also use emotional risk, social risk, creative risk—it doesn’t matter. It’s also very individual. A shy guy needs only to cross a room to talk to a pretty gal to pull this trigger.

But the most important thing to know is that flow follows focus. This is why people recommend always following your passion if you’re chasing flow. Why? Because our brain pays way more attention to stuff we’re passionate about. Put differently, a lot of what we call “flow hacking” is really ways of tricking the brain into paying more attention to the here and now.

CJ: I understand that you do a lot of consulting with business leaders on how to facilitate more flow in their workers.

Yes, I have done a fair bit of this work. My partner in the Flow Genome Project, Jamie Wheal, has done far, far more. The flow triggers we’ve been talking about are really accessible—it is not hard to design businesses around them.

CJ: Now that the book is releasing, you’re going to continue to work on flow research through the Flow Genome Project. Can you tell us a bit about that?

The Flow Genome Project is an international, trans-disciplinary organization dedicated to decoding flow. As you pointed out above, we do a bit of consulting, but our core focus is to seriously advance flow state research. We’re also in the process of building Flow Dojos—dedicated flow research and training facilities. But the most important thing to know is this is an open source project. The goal is to hack ultimate human performance. This is relevant to everyone—who doesn’t want to be able to perform at their best. Thus, we want everyone involved. Go to our website, sign up for Flow Hacker Nation, and get involved.

UPDATE: WE HAVE A WINNER!!!! Shopify’s Build a Business competition is OVER and THE WINNER IS… Kevin Mack of Tatsup! For more information on Kevin and Tatsup, head to Shopify’s blog post announcement. Needless to say, I’m stoked to be able to be able to bring him to NYC, slap a chunk of change into his hand, and give him my advice every step of the way (or for as long as he wants it ;))

Thanks to all the competitors who entered and make sure to congratulate the rest of the winners and I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how Kevin’s mentorship with me goes and how he grows his business with the help he’ll be getting from me & Shopify. ShoutOut to Shopify for helping make this happen.

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We are living in the Age of the Artist. Never before in history has it been this easy for creatives to create, for artists to make their art. Yet still the masses are filled with those who postpone their artistic dreams. I say the worst thing you can do is postpone.

But some people just need a bigger carrot. So I went hunting and found a prize for you. Actually, I teamed up with my friends at Shopify and am offering YOU a chance at a check for $50,000 and my promise to be your mentor for life (or until you kick me out). Yes. This actually means we will be friends.

If you’re late to the party, here’s how to enter [in 3 easy steps]:

1. Go to the Shopify Build a Business page2. Choose your category (I’m mentoring in the Art & Photography category, but choose what suits your artistic dream)3. Start selling and kick your business into gear.

I figure the end game can only be 1 of 2 options:

1. You win the contest, $50,000 and a mentor for life; OR2. You don’t win, but you’ve built that business you’ve always dreamed of, and it’s now a REAL THING that makes you money and channels all that creativity you never knew (or perhaps always knew?) you had.

If ever there was a win-win scenario, this is it.

So you’re not into Art & Photography? Fine – I don’t care. I means just as much to me that you follow your dreams. Read on, because Shopify certainly has your interest category covered. Maybe you’re into Music, Electronics & Gadgets, Jewelry & Crafts, Health & Beauty, Food & Beverage, Fashion & Apparel, or Sports & Recreation. Any of those ring some bells?

If you start a business with Shopify and have the most sales in your category over a particular window between NOW and MAY 2014, then you win. Pretty simple. The longer, more detailed version of all that is here on the Shopfiy site. There is plenty of time to kick ass and sell your heart out, but the time to start is NOW. Oh ya…if you win, I’ll fly you back to NYC and had you the 50 GRAND myself.

BTS selfie at one of the first creativeLIVE workshops with Vincent Laforet

Wanted to take a break for a hot second this morning — away from studios and airplanes and shooting photos in far away places — to make a special announcement and say a huge, ginormous thank you.

If you’ve been a part of this community for some time, then you already know that a few years back, myself and my good pal Craig Swanson, scratched out some ideas on a whiteboard, rallied a bunch of friends, and kicked off a dream to unleash the creative potential of millions of people worldwide — the creative potential that we all have inside us– by delivering the world’s highest quality creative education to a global community for free. That project was called creativeLIVE.

Now more than 3 years into that journey…that scrappy little company born from a gritty warehouse in South Seattle and based on the fundamental principle that we should ALL have access to world-class creative education regardless of age, gender, socio-economic status or experience level — has hit a handful of super-exciting milestones. We have now delivered more than 1 BILLION minutes of free creative education to more that 2 MILLION people in 200 COUNTRIES worldwide. We have 85 employees, more than 500 online courses and are producing more live educational content than anyone in the world.

And let’s be clear – these milestones and others we will continue to share in the near future are based entirely on YOUR belief, YOUR support and the support of our entire amazing, collective community. THANK YOU. Seriously. Getting teary-eyed thinking of how much you have helped my wildest dreams come true. It’s because of you that Pulitzer Prize winners, New York Times Best Selling Authors, Emmy nominated directors, cutting edge artists and the world’s top entrepreneurs have decided to hang their hat on creativeLIVE’s platform to share their knowledge. They have discovered through YOUR participation in cL that this community more than any other in online education wants to learn and grow together, have meaningful on and offline relationships and work to transform passions, careers, and lives….to make knowledge accessible, to enable skill-based learning, and -dare I say it- help make big and small dreams alike come true.

It’s with all this in stride that I’m proud to share with you today that creativeLIVE have raised $21.5 million dollars in a new round of venture capital financing from The Social+Capital partnership + Greylock Partners. Whoa! Holy crap that is a lot of money. What does this mean? What will cL do with this money? Put simply, we raised this money to better serve you, our community, to help us reach a new set of goals, and to take this platform to an entirely new level.

More specifically…. We have listened to you and have heard that you want more access to top experts in creative fields beyond photography. As a result, we have over the past year expanded into video production, art & design, audio & music, and business / entrepreneurship to help you pursue the skills and passions that you want to learn. We will continue to deliver this – and grow it Among other things, this expansion requires capital — money to bring in more of the world’s best instructors in these channels, money for new studios, new infrastructure, new technology and salaries for a kickass staff who wants to change the world. We want to build a category defining, long-standing company that serves its community in a way that no other education company ever has or will.

In the last 15 months we have opened up new studios in Seattle and San Francisco and have hired world class people like Mika Salmi, Brent Ayrey and Rick Silvestrini. Mika was the frickin President of Viacom where he ran all 35 TV channels there including MTV and Comedy Central and other division including Universal Pictures! Brent came from Netflix where he built from scratch their game-changing streaming service that today makes up 20% of all internet traffic on any given day. In turn, we landed Rick from YouTube where he ran the curation and business around the YT homepage – which is one of the hottest pages on the entire internet. These are people who have “made it” elsewhere in life and have now turned their lives and careers toward creativeLIVE to be a part of a movement focused on growing a community and a product that democratizes creative education. We know that creativity is the new literacy. These people and others like them are the kinds of people that are building this company WITH YOU and FOR YOU.

What does this mean for me personally? Not much is different – other than an even more intense desire to pursue creativity for myself and others, to deliver value to you, to push boundaries and challenge less effective “old” ways of thinking, doing, and making. I will continue shooting photos like mad, directing films & shows & commercials all over the damn place, shooting chasejarvisLIVE and sharing all that stuff here on my blog and within my social feeds and wherever else is I can find a way.

I will also be going deeper into creativeLIVE, looking for new ways to synergize my life as an artist with helping drive the kind of innovation that you want to see…ensuring cL is built by creatives for creatives. I feel like I’ve learned enough for 100 lifetimes throughout this process already — getting to find out what makes me tick as well as rubbing elbows with all kinds of characters, from dirtbags (like me) to brilliant bad-asses to legendary billionaires and everything in between. And I have this distinct feeling that it’s just getting rolling. As I continue to learn, and stumble and succeed and fail, I’ll continue to share.

If you have questions or comments – please do share them below. I’ll respond below or wherever possible.

Huge thank you for making all of this possible. For deeming that yours truly and/or the creativeLIVE movement are worthy of your support. #gratitude

The fine folks at TechCrunch stopped by the San Francisco HQ of CreativeLIVE the other day. In typical CRIBS fashion I gave them a little tour of our space and a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the inside of the new method of creative education. Check out the video below and the full story: HERE

Among other wonderful benefit, travel is known to inspire creativity. And for those of you who want to travel but don’t think you have the means… allow me to (re-)introduce you to my pal Chris Guillebeau is a globe trotting, “self employed for life” hacker. He is also the founder of the World Domination Summit (most amazing name ever for a creative conference…) and the best-selling author of The $100 Startup as well as The Art of Non-Comformity. When Chris appeared on chasejarvisLIVE earlier this year I heard from a lot of you that you want to travel, but didn’t have the means..

Soooo…I begged him for a followup post to help you and I hack the system.

As such, in advance of his free creativeLIVE course on Travel Hacking which is running RIGHT NOW (tune in here), he agreed to lay out a specific foundation for us here to make worldwide travel a reality for more than just the rich… Take it away, CG.

Thanks Chase. Over the past ten years I’ve built a hybrid career from travel hacking, a way of seeing the world on a limited budget. It amazes me how many people find traveling — and even the idea of a vacation — out of reach. Whenever I tell people about the next country I’m visiting, they respond the same way, over and over: “I wish I could do that.”

I usually reply with a question: “What’s keeping you from it?”

The answers are always resoundingly the same: I don’t have the money, I don’t have the time, I’m waiting until I retire.

It’s not just the people I meet who feel this way. Here are a few statistics:

● A Harris Interactive study found that 57% of Americans will have unused vacation time at the end of the year.
● On average, American workers surrender 11 unused paid vacation days the end of the year — 70 percent of their allotted time off.
● According to a study from Hotwire, 87% of Americans would take more trips if they had the time and money to do so.

The problem isn’t lack of time or lack of money; the problem is how we choose to spend our resources. We choose what we value, either consciously or unconsciously — and Americans are clearly unconsciously choosing work over play.

When’s the last time you took a vacation? Here’s why you need to start planning your next trip today:

If not now, when? People often tell me they’re waiting until retirement to invest resources and time in traveling. While I don’t see anything wrong with delaying gratification, I do see a major problem in doing so to avoid living the life you want. You will not lose your job because you take a vacation. Don’t fool yourself into believing busyness is how you earn happiness.

There is no substitute for new experiences. For me, the more I have traveled, the more I learn, and the more I realize how big the world really is. Leaf Van Boven, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, has found that people are made happier by new life experiences than by material possessions. Visiting a new country exposes you to new sights, smells, tastes, and sounds. A trip is an incomparable investment in your memory bank.

You can afford it. Most people reading this have limited time and limited money. I’ve spent a lot of my own time figuring out how to help you save money — so you can spend your downtime unwinding and making new experiences, not cutting coupons to nickle and dime on that dream vacation you want to take in 20 years.
Here are 5 innovative travel hacks you can start using right now:

1) Never let airline miles expire. Make use of the airline miles you have and never let them go to waste. If you have miles that are getting close to expiring don’t believe the myth that you have to fly to keep them- you only have to have activity in your mileage account. Redeem a few miles to buy a magazine subscription or check out the airlines facebook page to see if they have any offers to get a few quick and easy miles. Some airlines offer promotions that will give you 500 miles for liking a page, watching a video or playing a social media game. All of these action (or shopping online- see #3) will keep your miles in business.

2) Track glitch fares. Once in awhile, airlines will screw up and price one of its fares incredibly low. This is an accidental glitch that will eventually be fixed — but, if you spot these glitches before the airline does, you can save thousands of dollars. One of my readers who alerted me to a special deal on Business Class flights from Malaysia to any airport in Canada. A ticket that normally would cost $2500 was showing up in the system priced at $630. I went to Malaysia twice using that single glitch fare, and even earned elite status with Delta thanks to the offer. Pay attention to the mistake fare forum at milepoint.com

3) Multiply your miles for online shopping. Whenever you buy online use an airline’s mileage mall portal to get extra points for your purchase. Some shops offer 2x – 10x bonus miles per dollar spent just for clicking on their link to get to the store you were going to buy from anyway. Check what sites are offering the best bonuses the day you shop at www.evreward.com.

4) Play the credit card game. Sign up for a new credit card and get up to 50,000 airline miles as a bonus. That’s enough miles to book a free ticket for the European holiday you think you can’t afford. See what credit cards are offering the best bonuses at www.cardsfortravel.com

5) Buy gift cards. Know what bonuses your credit cards offer for spending and take advantage of them. If you get a 2x – 5x point per dollar bonus at office supply stores, drug stores or supermarkets take advantage of the system to buy reloadable gift cards for restaurants, gas stations and your favorite shops. My Chase business card gets me 5 miles per dollar at Office Depot but only one mile per dollar at gas stations. My solution is to buy $50 gas station gift cards and then use these to get gas. Not only do I get 250 miles for my fill up instead of 50 (at one mile per dollar) — I also get the cash price at the pump for using a “cash” gift card.

Of course, this is just the beginning. but get off your bootie and make it happen. 30 min of strategy today can to set this stuff up can pave the way for at least one free trip each year and many more if you’re on your A-game.

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REMINDER Chris is offering a free creativeLIVE online course that will reveal how he travels the world, upgrades to first class and gets to travel and photograph the world LARGELY FOR FREE with his How to Become a Travel Hacker course. It’s LIVE RIGHT NOW. Tune in HERE.

You read the title and thought I was talking smack. But in fact, on last week’s special addition of chasejarvisLIVE (during the week-long creativeLIVE broadcast extravaganza of FREE photo education PhotoWeek) we connected LIVE with the creator of THE manifesto for creativity in the digital age Steal Like an Artist. Intrigued? Well you ought to be. Austin Kleon is a brilliant artist (Newspaper Blackout), speaker (giving the keynote this year at SXSW!), a NY Times best seller, and Austin is perhaps the most articulate artist alive at discussing creative inspiration, how we find it, and HOW to find those things which elude most every photographer/creative — your very own style and vision. He was my guest on last week’s chasejarvisLIVE and it’s no exaggeration to say that it was one of the most inspirational episodes to date.

Here’s a taste of what you’ll learn from the re-watch of Austin on the show:
-How to Steal Like an Artist (no, seriously, you need to start doing this….)
-How to find that creative vision that is truly your own
-How side projects and hobbies are critical – it’s what you make that matters
-How to promote your work in a way that doesn’t feel gross
-That geography is no longer our master – you can live anywhere and make it big
-That creativity is about subtraction

Just like Austin, Picasso, and many others….Jim Jarmusch says it clearly:

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent.”